“Lady, it may be dangerous!”
“More dangerous with thee and thy magic than without thee?” she inquired archly. “Have I misjudged thee after all?”
Stile looked askance at her. “I had thought thou dost not crave my company. For the sake of the good work done by the Blue Adept thou callest me lord, but in private we know it is not so. I do not mean to impose my presence on thee more than necessary.”
“And with that understanding, may not the Lady accompany the Lord?”
Stile sighed. He had made due protest against a prospect that in fact delighted him as much as it made him nervous and guilty. “Of course she may.”
The Lady rode a pale blue mare, the offspring of the foal of the Hinny and the Blue Stallion. As she had described, this mare’s color was mainly an echo of the blue harness, but the effect was there. The Blue Stallion had been alive but aging when the Blue Adept was killed; the horse, it was understood, had died of grief.
Stile rode Neysa. He had never ridden another steed since taming her. No horse could match her performance, but it was more than that. Much more.
They crossed the fields south of the Blue Castle and entered the forest adjacent to the Purple Mountain range. Soon they were in the foothills. According to Stile’s references, the geographical tomes collected by his other self, the tribe of the Dark Elves who worked platinum lived on a mountain about fifty miles east of where the convenient curtain-access to Proton was. The animals knew the way, once it had been determined; Neysa had ranged these lands for years and knew the location by description, though she was not conversant with the actual Elven Demesnes.
Here the lay of the land was gentle, and the air balmy, with patchwork clouds making the sunshine intermittent. The ride became tedious despite the pleasure of the surroundings. Had Stile been riding alone, he would have slept, trusting Neysa to carry him safely, or have played his harmonica, or simply have talked to the unicorn. But the presence of the Lady Blue in her natural splendor inhibited him.
“It was across this country I rode the Hinny, so long it seems ago,” she remarked.
Stile found no appropriate response. He rode on in silence, wishing that the tragedy of his other self did not lie between them.
“The Hinny,” she repeated musingly. “How I miss that fine animal!”
This was safer ground. “How is she now? Ten years is a fair span in the life of a horse, about thirty of ours, but not interminable.”
“Of course thou knowest not,” the Lady said somberly. “The Hinny was bred by the Blue Stallion, and returned to her wilderness fastness alone. The blue lad went back to his business, about which we inquired not, but which I believe was the meticulous construction of the Blue Castle. I remained with my family and with Snowflake, the white foal we had rescued. Sometimes out in the fields we thought we glimpsed the Hinny, and our hearts yearned toward her, but never came she nigh. Yet I was ill at ease. The revealed identity of my erstwhile companion the blue lad astounded me, and I was shamed. Yet I was intrigued too, and potently flattered by his suit. I remembered the vision I had had while he played his music, the Lady in the blue moon, and the subtle appeal of that notion grew. Later I learned that he had gone to inquire the identity of his ideal wife, and the Oracle had named me. It had for once been not obscure or circuitous or capable of alternate interpretation; it had told him exactly where and when to find me. Hence he had come at the designated moment, extremely fortuitous for me as I hung dangling in the clutch of the troll, and preserved my life when else it would have ended there. He had done all that he had done only to win my favor, though I was his by right from the moment he rescued me. And I only an ignorant peasant-girl!”
“The Oracle knew better,” Stile murmured. “Thy Lord’s legacy lives on in thee, when else it would have perished.”
She continued as if she had not heard him. “Ah, what a foolish girl was I in that time. Long and long was it before ever I gave him the third Thee.”
“I beg thy pardon, Lady. I don’t follow—”
She gestured negligently with one hand. “Of course thou art from another culture, so I needs must inform thee. In Phaze, when a person loves another and wishes to have it known without obligation, she omits the statement and repeats only the object, Thee, three times. Then that other may do as he wishes, without reproach.”
“I don’t understand,” Stile said. “Just to say to a person ‘Thee, th—’ ”
Neysa nearly bucked him off as she drowned him out with a blast from her horn.
“Say it not carelessly nor in jest,” the Lady reproached him. “It has the force of an oath.”
Shaken, Stile apologized. “I have much to learn yet of this culture. I thank thee, Lady, for educating me, and thee, Neysa, for preventing me from compromising myself ignorantly.” But it would not have been a lie if he had said it to the Lady; this was a battle all but lost at the outset. Still, it would have put her in an awkward situation.
“When next I saw the Hinny,” the Lady continued blithely, “she was in sad state. Gravid, she had been beset by cowardly predators, jackals, and was nigh unto death. She limped to our gate, remembering me, and I screamed and roused my father. Never did I see him so angry, for the Hinny had been his admiration since the instant he saw her first. He took his cudgel and beat off all the curs that harried her, while I tried to help her. But all was for naught; she had lost much blood, and expended her last store of vitality reaching us, and the Hinny died at our door.
“Then did I remember the spell the blue lad had left me. ‘Blue to me—I summon thee!’ I cried. And he was there. When he saw the Hinny he gave a great cry of agony and fell upon her, taking her head in his arms, and the tears flowed down his face. But she was dead, her open eyes seeing naught, and all his magic availed not.
“The lad brought out his harmonica and played a tune, wondrously sad, and two moons clouded over and the sun faded, and a shimmer formed in the air between us. It made a picture, and it showed the Hinny, as she had been in life, great with foal, grazing near the wood. Then a pack of jackals charged, a foul horde, surly ill-kempt curs of scant individual courage, like to wolves as goblins be to men, seeking to overrun their quarry by sheer mass. She leaped away, but the weight of the foal within her made her ponderous and somehow her front feet stumbled, causing her to fall and roll, and the brutes were on her in a motley pile, ripping at her flesh, tearing at her ears and tail. She struggled to her feet, but they hung on her like despicable leeches, and her precious blood was flowing. Gashed and weakening, she struggled out of that wood, the jackals constantly at her feet, leaping at her, trying to drag her down again, so that she left a trail of blood. So at last she came to me, and I saw myself scream and throw my hands to my head, reacting hysterically instead of helping her, and then my father came with his cudgel, and the magic vision faded.
“My father stood beside me, watching the sorrow of Blue, and indeed we shared it. Then did I comprehend the third of the great qualities about the Blue Adept that were to be the foundation of my love for him. His music, his power—and his abiding love for—” She hesitated momentarily. “For equines.”
Stile realized she had been about to say “horses” and had reconsidered, from deference to Neysa.
“At last the blue lad rose, and it was as if the blood had been drained from him as it had from the Hinny. ‘Because her knees were weak, the jackals caught her,’ he said. ‘The knees she sacrificed for me.’ And I could not say nay, for I had seen it happen.
“ ‘Yet can I do somewhat,’ he continued, and there was that in him that frightened me, and I began to get a glimmer of the meaning of the sorrow and anger of an Adept. ‘Turn you both about, lest you see what pleases you not.’ And my father, wiser than I, took mine arm and made me turn with him. There was a pause, then sweet, bitter music as the lad played his harmonica. Then the muttering of an incantation, and an explosion of heat and odor. We turned again—and the corpse of the Hinny was gone, blasted by Blue’s mag
ic, and in the swirling smoke the lad stood, holding in his arms a newborn foal, light blue in hue.
“ ‘The Hinny be dead, but her foal lives,’ he said. ‘This is why she came to thee.’ Then before we could properly react, he addressed my father. ’This foal is birthed before her time. Only constant, expert care can save her. I am no healer; she requires more than magic. I beg thee, sir, to take her off my hands, rendering that which only thou canst give, that she may survive and be what she can be.’
“My father stood bemused, not instantly comprehending the request. ‘The Hinny came to thee,’ the lad continued, ‘knowing thou couldst help her. More than all else, she wanted her foal to live and to be happy and secure. No right have I to ask this favor of thee, knowing it will be years before thou art free of this onus. Yet for the sake of the Hinny’s faith—’ And he stepped forward, holding forth the foal. And I knew my father was thinking of the Hinny, the finest mare of any species he had ever beheld, and of the Blue Stallion, the finest stud, and seeing in this foal a horse like none in Phaze—worth a fortune no man could measure. And I realized that in the guise of a request, the lad was proffering a gift of what was most dear to my father’s dreams. It was Blue’s way.
“My father took the foal in silence and bore her to our stable, for she needed immediate care. I remained facing the lad. And something heaved within my breast, not love but a kind of gratitude, and I knew that though he looked to be a lad and was in fact a nefarious magician, he was also a worthy man. And he inclined his head to me, and then he walked away toward the forest where the jackals had attacked the Hinny. And in a little while there was a brilliant burst of light there, and that whole forest was aflame, and I heard the jackals screaming as they burned. And I remembered how he had destroyed the trolls, and was appalled at this act of vengeance. Yet did I understand it also, for I too loved the Hinny, and who among us withholds our power when that which is dear to us is ravaged? The power of an Adept is a terrible thing, yet the emotion was the same as mine. No creature aggravates an Adept but at the peril of his kind. Yet when later I rode Starshine out to that region, I found the forest alive and green. Only the charred skeletons of the jackals remained; none other had been hurt. I marveled again at the power of the Adept, as awesome in its discretion as in its ferocity.
“After that my father made no objection to Blue’s suit, for it was as if he had exchanged me for the precious foal, and duly the banns were published and I married the Blue Adept though I did not really love him. And he was ever kind to me, and made for me the fine domicile now called the Blue Demesnes, and encouraged me to develop and practice my healing art on any creatures who stood in need, even trolls and snow demons, and what I was unable to heal he restored by a spell of his own. Some we healed were human, and some of these took positions at the castle, willingly serving as sentries and as menials though no contract bound them. But mainly it was the animals who came to us, and no creature ever was turned away, not even those known as monsters, so long as they wreaked no havoc. It was a picturebook marriage.”
She abated her narrative. “I thank thee for telling me how it was,” Stile said carefully.
“I have not told thee the half of how it was,” she said with surprising vehemence. “I loved him not, not enough, and there was a geas upon our union. He knew both these things, yet he treated me ever with consummate respect and kindness. How I wronged him!”
This was a surprise. “Surely thou dost overstate the case! I can not imagine thee—”
But confession was upon her. Neysa made a little shake of her horn, advising him to be silent, and Stile obeyed. “The geas was inherent in his choice of me to wed. He had asked the Oracle for his ideal wife, but had failed to include in that definition the ideal mother of his children. Thus I learned when I queried the Oracle about the number and nature of my children-to-be. ‘None by One,’ it told me in part, and in time I understood. There was to be no child by my marriage to him; no heir to the Blue Demesnes. In that way I wronged him. And my love—” She shrugged. “I was indeed a fool. Still I thought of him as a lad, a grown child though I knew him for a man, and a creature of incalculable power. Perhaps it was that power that straitened my heart against him. How could I truly love one who could so readily destroy all who stood against him? What would happen if ever he became wroth with me? And he, aware of this doubt, forced me not, and therefore had I guilt. So it was for years—”
She broke off, overcome by emotion. Stile remained silent. This was an aspect of her history that instilled misgiving, yet he knew it was best that he know it.
“Those wasted years!” she cried. “And now too late!”
They had come to rougher territory, as if the land itself responded to the Lady’s anguish of conscience. These were the mere foothills to the Purple Mountains, Stile knew, yet the ridges and gullies became steep and the trees grotesquely gnarled. The turf was thick and springy; the steeds were not partial to the footing. Stile found the landscape beautiful, original, and somehow ominous—like the Lady Blue.
“Can we skirt this region?” Stile asked Neysa.
The unicorn blew a note of negation. It seemed that this was the only feasible route. Stile knew better than to challenge this; the unicorn could have winded a dragon or some other natural hazard, and be threading her way safely past. So they picked their path carefully through the rugged serrations of the land, making slow progress toward the major range.
The Lady’s horse balked. She frowned and gently urged it forward, but the mare circled instead to the side—and balked again.
“This is odd,” the Lady commented, forgetting her recent emotion. “What is bothering thee, Hinblue?”
Then the Lady’s fair tresses lifted of their own accord, though there was no wind.
Neysa made a double musical snort. Magic!
Stile brought out his harmonica. “Nay, play not,” the Lady said hastily. She did not want him to show his power in the vicinity of the land of the Little Folk.
But her hair danced about and flung itself across her eyes like a separately living thing, and her horse fidgeted with increasing nervousness. Neysa’s horn began to lower to fighting range.
“Just a melody,” Stile told her. “Neysa and I will play a little tune, just to calm thy steed.” And to summon his magic—just in case.
They played an impromptu duet. Neysa’s music was lovely, of course—but Stile’s carried the magic. It coalesced like a forming storm, charging the immediate atmosphere.
And in that charge, dim figures began to appear: small, slender humanoids, with flowing hair and shining white robes. They had been invisible; now they were translucent, the color slowly coming as the music thickened the magic ambience. Stile’s power was revealing them. One of them was hovering near the Lady, playing with her hair.
“The Sidhe,” the Lady breathed, pronouncing it “Shee.” “The Faerie-folk, They were teasing us.”
Stile squeezed Neysa’s sides with his knees questioningly. She perked her ears forward: a signal that there was no immediate danger.
Stile continued playing, and the ethereal figures solidified. “O, Sidhe,” the Lady said. “Why do you interfere with us? We seek no quarrel with your kind.”
Then a Faerie-man responded. “We merely played with thee for fun, Lady of the Human Folk, as we do so often with those who are unaware of our nature. Innocent mischief is the joy of our kind.” His voice was winningly soft, with the merry tinkle of a mountain streamlet highlighting it. Stile could appreciate how readily such a voice could be mistaken for completely natural effects—flowing water, blowing breezes, rustling leaves.
“And thou,” a Sidhe maid said to Stile as he played. “What call hast thou, of Elven kind, to ride with a mundane woman?” Her voice was as soft as the distant cooing of forest doves, seductively sweet, and her face and form were similarly winsome.
Stile put aside his harmonica. The Sidhe remained tangible; now that they had been exposed, they had no further need of invisib
ility. “I am a man,” he said.
“A man—on a unicorn?” she inquired derisively. “Nay, thou art more likely a giant kobold, serving in the house of the human lady. Thou canst not fool her long, sirrah! Come, I will offer thee entertainment fit for thy kind.” And she did a little skip in air that caused her white skirt to sail up, displaying her immortal legs to advantage.
“Thou’rt not my kind,” Stile insisted, intrigued.
“Dost thou jilt me already?” she flashed, and evanescent sparks radiated from her hair. “I will have thy fanny in a hoist, ingrate!”
Neysa shifted her horn to bear on the Faerie-lass, who skipped nimbly aside. These magical creatures might not fear the weapons of human beings, but the unicorn’s horn was itself magical, and would take its toll of any creature.
Stile lifted his harmonica to his mouth again.
“Yea, play!” the Sidhe lady exclaimed. “I will forgive thee thine indiscretion if thou playest while we dance.”
It was a face-saving maneuver on her part, but Stile decided to go along. He did not want to have to use overt magic here. He played, and Neysa accompanied him, and the music was marvelously light and pretty. Stile had been a fair musician before he came to Phaze, but he had improved substantially since.
The Sidhe flocked in and formed their formation in mid-air. They danced, wheeling in pairs, singing and clapping their little hands. The males stood about four and a half feet tall, with calloused hands and curly short beards; the females were closer to four feet, and all were delicate of limb and torso. They whirled and pranced, the girls flinging their skirts out with delightful abandon, the men doing elaborate dance steps. It was beautiful, and looked like an extraordinary amount of fun.